Is it God's will or a religious spirit?

by Lance Wallnau

IT's 11:11 - time for this EVENING"S PROPHETIC WORD!

Balance - so hard to achieve. Those who are driven by a perpetual thirst for success, wealth and significance, seldom hear or heed the summons to serve, write big checks and pray for others.

Those who swing to the polar opposite, perpetually seek God (so it seems)... but their spirituality is linked to poverty, social ineffectiveness and toxicity. Especially in their criticism of all those who believe in "prosperity."

In the middle of these extremes are those who balance on the razor's edge of real SPIRITUALITY and SUCCESS. I have fallen into both ditches. (The one without money was worse.)

A religious spirit is subtle because it occupies you with "God thought's" all day long. But the religious spirit tells you that you need to pray more, fast more, do more....you never quite feel right unless somehow you are suffering.

This belief sets you up to sabotage any opportunity that comes your way to prosper and have social status. It feels unclean.

HERE IS THE KEY TO DISCERNING A RELIGIOUS SPIRIT
The supreme measure of true spirituality, the highest objective God has for man is "obedience" not suffering. The Prophet Samuel rebuked King Saul when he confused the issue of obedience and sacrifice, saying: "To OBEY is better than sacrifice"

Here's a thought that flips my mind...

To SACRIFICE when obedience requires you to prosper is the height of disobedience!

To turn down a promotion in order to better serve God, when God sent that promotion, is disobedience.

To be sad when God say's to be happy is disobedience. To fast on a feast day is disobedience.

The nature of a religious spirit is to make you feel guilty for pleasure - at all times. Thus robbing God of the joy of blessing you.

What was the CUP Jesus had to drink? Was it the cup of sacrifice? No, I think it was the cup of OBEDIENCE. Before the will of the Father was absolutely revealed the cup and God's revealed will were two separate things. Jesus prayed earnestly to know the Fathers will. He did not say " I want to be crucified, I must drink the cup" rather he prays in consecration to find the Father's will. As Jesus sees the cup of obedience becoming the cup of suffering, he says, "If it be possible take this cup away...yet not my will but thine be done." The will of God - obedience is the issue, not suffering.

In obedience he drinks the cup of suffering, and turn's it into the cup of blessing for us.

To serve God we are not called to chose sacrifice, rather we are called to chose the WILL OF GOD. If the will of God is sacrifice, then let us do so like soldiers. The crossroad's of life are not a choice between the cross and compromise with the devil. We don't come up to a cross at any crossroad - we CARRY a cross up to the crossroad! It is the instrument of judgement that enables us to practice self denial to stay true to the PURPOSE OF GOD! The cross we carry keeps us true to the purpose.

The cross is self denial. We deny ourself whenever temptation solicits us to detour from the path of purpose. At other times the cross enables us to judge the religious spirit, because above all, the cross of Jesus is the only sacrifice that counts with God. Your sacrifice is not needed. All our suffering does not add a thing to His perfectly finished work, and that's the scariest subtlety of all about a religious spirit - it is rooted in a "self righteous spirit." A spirit that substitute's our suffering for FAITH and GRACE, two gifts made available through HIS sacrifice, not ours.